As a colleague recently put it, PACE financing (Property Assessed Clean Energy) was the Get Out of Jail Free card of the residential efficiency market. PACE financing could have solved a number of the most persistent problems in funding residential retrofits.

Under a PACE program, a city or municipality would issue and sell bonds. They would use the revenue from the sale to lend to homeowners to finance approved efficiency projects. The city would collect payments for the loan by putting a property tax assessment on the home and the monthly payment would be added to the mortgage.

Property assessment vehicles like this are commonly used by cities when to do things like adding sidewalks to a neighborhoods, and it seemed like